National Licences

For enduring improvement in the supply of electronic information the German Research Foundation (DFG) finances the purchase of National Licences: "The aim is to enable free access for scientists, students and scientifically interested private persons to numerous databases, digital text collections and electronic journals" (cf. web offers National Licences"): The prerequisite for the use of resources licensed in this way is either registration through an institute or registration as a private person.

For biology, out of the numerous nationally licensed products, the following bibliographic databases are of greatest interest (for more see product descriptions):

Biological Abstracts 1969-2004

BIOSIS Previews 1969-2004

Biological Abstracts Archive 1926-1968

CAB Abstracts Archive 1910-1989

Zoological Record 1978-2007

Zoological Record 1864-1977

Institutional access

As a member of a university you can usually make use of an existing institutional registration. The method enables simple access, without a special login, from German universities, research facilities, and scientific libraries. If your computer is not on the campus of your home institution you should enquire locally about other access possibilities (e.g. local login).

Private persons

If you do not have access via a scientific library or university, but are resident in Germany, you should register as a private person.
The central registration is made through the web site "National licences". You will then receive a password with which you may use numerous nationally licensed products.